Oz Round Table
The Oz Round Table boards => The Round Table => | EBAY ANNOUNCEMENTS and Online trade venue announcements | => Topic started by: gr8-expectations on May 29, 2009, 08:53:39 AM
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Today I received an email announcing that Auctiva will no longer be a free service from July but will be charged -
Dear XXXXXXXX,
You are an important member of the Auctiva family. We are proud to have been able to provide you with our eBay listing and marketing tools for free. Because we value your business, we wanted you to be the first to know that, starting in July, our services will no longer be completely free.
We did not come to this decision lightly. This adjustment was difficult for us to imagine after four years of being a completely free service. We are dedicated to providing you with the best service for your hard-earned dollars. The e-Commerce landscape is constantly evolving, and it has always been our promise to you to provide a full e-Commerce solution that will meet your needs today, tomorrow and in the future. As a result, we will have to begin charging for some of our services.
Despite this adjustment, we remain committed to providing you with great tools at a great value and we've worked hard to develop pricing plans that will be affordable for all sellers.
We want to make this transition as easy as possible for you. We will begin implementing the necessary changes on our site to accommodate our new pricing structure during the first week of June. As a valued customer, you'll have 30 days to evaluate and select a pricing plan, and we'll even help identify your best plan choice.
Fair & Flexible Pricing
With much time and careful consideration, we have developed five pricing packages to best meet the needs of the many different types of eBay sellers who use Auctiva.
We will help you select the plan that will offer you the lowest rates. If you are a smaller seller, we have a pay-per-use plan with no fixed monthly fee. Most customers who choose this plan will only pay a couple dollars per month. If you are a larger seller, we have affordable plans to fit your business model as well. We are confident that Auctiva is still the best value for you no matter what your business size.
Your Best Plan Choice
If we have 60-90 days of eBay sales data for you, we have already done the math to identify your most affordable plan choice. Once the site is fully released you will find that plan marked for you in our plan choices along with the numbers we used to reach that conclusion¹.
Where to Get Answers
No doubt, you will want to learn more about these pricing plans. You can view the new pricing plan comparison table here. We are also posting anticipated Q&A and a schedule for webinars in the community forums and monitoring them all weekend to help you get your questions answered.
Your business is very important to us. If there is anything we can do to ease this transition for you, please contact Customer Support.
Sincerely,
Jeff Schlicht CEO, Auctiva Corporation
¹Best plans choices are based on availability of eBay sales data > 60 days and if you had at least one listing in March 2009. We will take all listings and sales data from March, April, and May 2009 and average them. In the case of < 60 days of eBay sales data or no listing in March 2009, customer support will be available to help identify a best plan.
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Alternatives to Auctiva?
inkFrog (http://www.inkfrog.com/index.php)
Vendio (https://www.vendio.com/)
Seller SourceBook (http://www.sellersourcebook.com/index.html)
Auction Listing Templates
BiggerBids (http://www.biggerbids.com/)
eVendor (http://www.evendor.com/)
Robs Help Template Builder (http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=robshelp)
CG WebSolutions Free Template Builder (http://www.cgwebsolutions.com/OurServices/VieweBayTemplateBuilder.asp?Clean=1)
ISDNtek Auction Tools (http://www.isdntek.com/)
google "ebay auction templates" for heaps of other template builders
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eBay.com Discussion
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Seller-Central/Auctiva-To-Start/520124554
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Thanks wheels for that, I believe one of those alternatives is amazing quality - seller sourcebook, maybe if we are starting to pay for the services they are worth a try, i dont know the others but have seen the seller sourcebook templates and ads some use on ebay and they look very high quality.
Wonder if an ebay takeover of Auctiva is on the cards, sounds like it perhaps?
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here is a link to info on some of the different programs, seller sourcebook being one;
http://www.squidoo.com/ebaytools
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Gr8, maybe Auctiva needs to recover income after eBay made changes to their Affiliate Progam.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y09/m05/i28/s02
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This may be an opening for under-employed Multimedia graduates to invest a bit of time in creating customised templates to sell! ;D
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yes wheels great opportunity for young designers and others, think i will move to seller sourcebook as i was intending to move there anyway and only have about 100 active and inactive total listings in auctiva so no big deal for me to move, when you compare auctiva and seller sourcebook it is chalk and cheese sourcebook is streets ahead, just love their designs!
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Just a question - I only used Auctiva for the scroller bar thingy that showed your other auctions, never for templates or listing, etc. Does anyone else offer that scroller thingy?? Is Auctiva going to charge for that scroller thingy??
( you can see just how tech savyy I am now, can't you!)
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Bella, it looks like the scroller bar thingy will still be free.
Auctiva's announcement
http://www.auctiva.com/edu/entry.aspx?id=Auctiva-Enters-New-Era
Those who don't specify a plan by the end of their 30-day trial period will be restricted from posting new listings to eBay, but will maintain access to Auctiva's suite of free tools, including Auctiva's Scrolling Gallery, a free Auctiva Store, up to 1 MB of free image hosting, auto marketing e-mails, data storage and access to Auctiva Education. These features come standard with all of Auctiva's five listing plans.
Pricing Plans (USD)
http://www.auctiva.com/edu/entry.aspx?id=Pricing-Comparison-Matrix
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Discussion on AU Selling Board
http://forums.ebay.com.au/topic/Selling/Oh-No-Auctive/500110551
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I also too only use the Scrolling Gallery so I do hope it is still free. I've never used their templates as I don't really like them.
I used to use Seller Source Book for a long time but stopped after the exchange rate wasn't as good. Used to cost around $8US a month. They also have a scrolling gallery that can be inserted in listings. Their codes work well with TL but I used to constantly get when I was copying the code over that SSB was a phishing site.
Will check out the others.
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inkFrog is welcoming ex-Auctiva users with open arms and a price lock guarantee for at least 3 years, $9.95USD/mth
http://www.inkfrog.com/price_lock.php
They have set up instructions to convert your listings and images to your inkFrog library and also set up a Discussion Board in their forum for ex-Auctiva users. That's Customer Service!
http://www.inkfrog.com/im.php
http://community.inkfrog.com/forumdisplay.php?f=57
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Also found some tutorial videos on the inkFrog site:
http://www.inkfrog.com/demos.php
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thanks wheels, inkfrog are certainly looking enticing, i have to decide soon on which one to go with, also like seller sourcebook as mentioned b4
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Gr8, from what I've been reading, inkFrog is fully compatible with ebay.com.au including the ability to schedule listings whereas with SSB you will have to cut and paste the code into the ebay listing page (if I have time next week I will have a closer look at both).
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Auctiva CEO Apologizes, New Flat-Rate Plans for eBay Sellers
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y09/m06/i10/s01
Auctiva founder and CEO Jeff Schlicht sent an email to customers on Tuesday night to apologize for the "frustration and anxiety" the company's new pricing plan had caused them, and announcing new pricing options. There are two new flat-rate plans, one for $9.95 a month, and a special $2.95/month plan for casual sellers. Auctiva's free marketing tools remain available.
Auctiva had announced it was moving from a free to fee model due in large part to changes in eBay's affiliate program on which it had relied for revenue. Customers made it loud and clear they did not like Auctiva's new pricing, and many took advantage of special invitations from the company's competitors.
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And inkFrog CEO welcomes Auctiva refugees!
http://www.inkfrog.com/welcome_auctiva.php
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And Vendio joins in the price matching! (I don't know whether it is compatible with ebay.com.au)
http://www.vendio.com/ecommerce/press_releases/2009/pr06032009